Desperate
by SouthernkindaTragic
Summary: Aidan comes home to find a surprise visitor on the doorstep, which triggers an old memory.


_I'm not entirely sure what this is. I've been missing Being Human a lot this year, and this was a random little idea that kept running through my mind. It started out to be comedic, and ended up somehow deep, I'm not sure how that happened. Set in season 2, after the hospital shut down Aidan's blood supply and he was about ready to fall off the wagon again._

_I hope you like it! Comments are much appreciated if you want to leave one. And, of course, I don't own any rights to Being Human, and all that noise. However, I do own the feeling of intense certainty that Josh is not a pet person._

* * *

There was a cat sitting on the front steps when Aidan got home. He already knew he hadn't seen it around before, even from where he was at the corner. He would've remembered its strange, light grayish-brown color, totally unlike any color an animal usually came in. A single dark patch covered its right ear, but other than that, the odd color covered the rest of the cat's body.

Maybe it belonged to one of the neighbors, perhaps that nice old lady who moved into the Lanham's old house. As he got closer to the house though, he could tell it was obviously a stray. The unnatural color was a result of a thick layer of grit covering the little creature from head to toe. Clumps of hair stuck together with dried dirt up and down its back, probably from a scummy puddle left behind from that rainstorm a couple days ago. It was also a lot skinnier than a beloved housecat should be, its bones sticking out in pointy angles under its fur. It set a steady gaze on Aidan as he rounded the corner and placed a foot on the first concrete step, but it didn't make any sign of moving.

Aidan hesitated. He had just gotten done with a twelve hour shift at the hospital – one of the day nurses had skipped off to Vegas with no notice – and he wanted nothing more than to sink into the sofa and watch some crap television until he had to run off to Suren and Mother. But for some reason the ugly cat made him pause. Aidan didn't even particularly care for cats, or any pet for that matter; they were just another thing that entered and left his life far too quickly. In his world, dogs and cats had the lifespan of a goldfish. There was no point in getting attached to something that would be gone in a single decade. But even with that in mind, he didn't really want to scare it off. It might run into the street or something, and it was only a few weeks ago that he could finally close his eyes without seeing the aftermath of the last time something ran into the street in front of his house.

The cat stared at him. Aidan slowly climbed to the other side of the step where it was sitting, but the cat didn't move, just kept looking at him with that creepy, unblinking gaze only cats are capable of. Its sunken eyes bored into him, a familiar look of desperation in them. Aidan had seen many forms of desperation in his long life, but he couldn't recall a single time it coming from a cat. It was disconcerting, and made the hairs on the back of his neck prickle as he unlocked the door.

It was probably starving. You get stubborn and stupid when you're starving. Aidan stooped down and reached out a hand to the scraggly thing, only to pull it back quickly as it hissed and swatted him away, its ears pressed flat against the back of its head. He put his hands up in silent surrender to it, even though the cat didn't have the faintest clue what human hand gestures meant. It was definitely used to looking out for itself; that was for sure. Its tough, stubborn demeanor and battle-torn ears told him that. It obviously wasn't used to asking for help either, but still it sat there, watching Aidan get up and push open the door, only the black ear still lowered.

Aidan took one more look at the thing's clouded gray eyes and gave a small sigh. It wouldn't hurt to bring out some food to the poor little beast. He couldn't sit around and watch it starve on his front porch. Josh probably had something in the fridge a cat could eat. Nothing else he could saw off a part of the rump roast sitting in there for the full moon tonight. Josh probably wouldn't even notice.

The cat was at his feet as soon as the door opened, and slinked inside before Aidan could think of stopping it. He watched it quickly disappear around the corner and out of sight, a line of silent expletives running through his head. Fantastic. It would take forever to chase it out of the house now. He mentally waved a goodbye to the sofa as he closed the door and went to the kitchen.

There wasn't much in the refrigerator, but there was a can of tuna in one of the cabinets. Aidan pulled the can opener out of the drawer, and the cat quietly reappeared, as if out of nowhere. It sat carefully on the tile a few feet away and raised a paw to rub behind an ear, always keeping a close eye on Aidan. It washed its face in a nonchalant manner, but it looked severely uncomfortable waiting for food in a stranger's house, like if it could have been anywhere else, it would have.

He should probably put the food outside, but the cat was already there in the kitchen, so what was the harm of letting it eat in the house? Aidan shrugged to his own question, put the can down on the kitchen floor next to his feet, and took a few steps away to stand by the back door. He could be quick to catch it there when it was done eating and bring it back outside so it wouldn't dart back into the dark corners of the house.

The cat gobbled down the contents of the can like it was the last meal it would see. Aidan was quickly forgotten in the corner as it focused all its attention on the meal.

A memory floated into the forefront of his thoughts as he watched it eat, so old and lost it surprised him. It was hazy, with time and duller senses. A sprawling frozen field under a dimming cloudy sky. A thin dirt trail winding between small wooden buildings, created by constant footsteps alone. A boy was half jogging, half skipping a few paces in front of him, a bowl clutched in his tiny hands. Fresh, creamy milk sloshed out over his fingers as he jerked it from one side to the other. "Isaac!" The boy stopped. Aidan bent down to steady the bowl in the curly-haired boy's hands. "Be careful. There won't be any milk left when we get there."

"Sorry, Papa," Isaac tried to keep his arms still.

"All is forgiven." Aidan watched as his son trotted away, still at a much faster pace than what was needed. A handkerchief of scraps from their dinner earlier was clutched in his hand. They were lucky ones for being able to spare scraps from their meals for anything other than family. There wasn't a day that passed that Aidan didn't thank God for the blessings in his life.

He smiled as one of his blessings tried to open the barn door without spilling the precious gift in his hands. He caught up before Isaac could soak most of his coat front and pulled the door open.

"Here, kitty," the child called as soon as he was inside. He sat the bowl down on the sweet-smelling hay. "We have milk! And food. And I have a toy for you."

Aidan watched in astonishment as Isaac pulled a small ball of yarn out of his coat pocket. He must have slipped it from Susanna's sewing supplies when neither of them had been looking. Even at only a few years, Isaac was proving to be cleverer than Aidan could have imagined. He had to keep a special eye on him so he wouldn't outsmart his games and go looking for something more challenging, and potentially dangerous, to do. Aidan was already sure he was going to go far in his life.

A pitch black tom cat slinked down from the hay loft and landed right in front of the milk bowl. "Blacky!" Isaac said with delight – wait, no, that wasn't right. Its name was… Midnight? Whiskers? Maybe it was just Kitty. Two hundred years had forever taken away a part of Aidan's memory.

He stooped down to give the nameless cat what was in the handkerchief and his son laughed as it gobbled it down like it was the last meal it would see. After it was done eating, they would pet its fur and give it tickles under its chin and take turns tossing it the yarn ball (Aidan gave most of his turns back to Isaac) until they were both shivering and the sun cast long shadows into the open door.

It had been Isaac's favorite part of the day for one winter. After the ground had thawed and the days began to grow longer, the cat disappeared. Isaac was devastated that his pet had left him, and Aidan could still feel the pain in his chest like a stake when he too had to leave only a few short months later. He liked to believe Blacky or Midnight or Whiskers came back to Isaac, maybe years later after everything had happened, but he would come back.

Aidan was so caught up in his lost memory that he didn't realize the current cat in his kitchen had licked the tin can clean and vanished again. A cuss word escaped his mouth as he was forced back into reality, and with that, the reality of a cat defecating on the rug.

He rushed into the living room and found the creature perched on top of the arm chair, its belly a lot rounder than it had been a few minutes ago. It was clearly satisfied and a lot more comfortable than it was previously too, licking its whiskers and washing its face with confidence now. He should toss it out while it was unsuspecting and present. He shouldn't have let eat in the house. He shouldn't have even given it any food at all; it would only come back to them since it knew where to get handouts.

Isaac still lingered on his memory. He was heartbroken when his cat had left. Aidan would have done anything to bring it back, just to see a smile light up on his little boy's face again.

The sound of the door startled him a little, and the cat a lot. It jumped up, calmness gone, and arched it back at Josh, who strutted into the room with plastic bags in his hands. He took notice of Aidan and launched into a rapid explanation of where he had been; "Hey, you're home. I was at the store. I had to get some peroxide before tonight, and I picked up milk and b-" He immediately stopped as he saw the new creature staring at him from the back of the chair. "And bread – is that a cat?" he finished and pointed at it, looking at Aidan with wide eyes for a confirmation.

Aidan leaned against the kitchen archway and folded his arms awkwardly, uncomfortable at being responsible for letting a filthy animal into Josh's pristine living space. "Uh, yes. That's – that is a cat," he said.

Josh whipped his head back and forth between his friend and the chair, looking as if he couldn't believe what he was seeing. "There's a cat… there's a cat on the chair." He rested his wild gaze on Aidan and said a little louder, "There's a cat in the house!"

Aidan nodded, trying to look innocent.

"Why is there a cat in the house? _Why is there a cat in my house_?"

Aidan quickly moved into the living room to try to console his roommate. "Calm down, I let it in-"

"You_ let it in?"_

"Yes – no! It ran in when I opened the door and it was starving, so I gave it something to eat." Josh was looking at him like he had completely lost his mind. Aidan sighed in frustration, "I was just getting it out when you came in."

Josh stared at him for a couple moments, looking genuinely concerned that Aidan really had lost his mind, then gave a short, slightly manic laugh. He pushed around him to the kitchen where he put the bags down on the table and came back out to the living room in a single nervous, quick gait. Josh was always a little twitchy and overdramatic, but the full moon always made the neurotic habits ten times worse. As if it was taking all of his willpower not to burst out of his skin right there in the daylight. It wasn't much of a surprise to Aidan that something as little as a stray cat napping on a chair had set him off today, especially since he had a thing with germs and cleanliness anyway. "You were just getting it out," Josh repeated Aidan's words before turning around with a pointed finger. "You left a wild animal in the living room!"

"There's a wild animal in the living room?" Sally's familiar voice came from in back of him. Aidan turned around, ready to defend himself to her too, but Sally's expression was more of curiosity than outrage. She briefly glanced around the room before settling her gaze on the chair. "Aw, kitty," she cooed, then turned back to Aidan. "Yeah, that thing is not living in my house."

"Thank you!" Josh exclaimed.

"No one said it was living in the house!" Aidan said in a raised tone to be heard over his two roommate's chatter. "I just gave it food, that's it. Are you happy?"

Sally had on an expression of sheer amusement, but Josh folded his arms and looked like he was sincerely pondering the question. At least he seemed calmer when he said, "Well, besides the high probability of the carpet being infested with fleas and other parasites…" He shook his head, "No, not really."

"Plus he's just going to keep coming back since you fed him once, so I mean, now we have a permanent moocher," Sally added in a light tone. "I'm just saying."

Aidan threw up his hands and stormed into the kitchen. He opened the fridge in search of one last bag of blood, but there hadn't been any for weeks now. He closed the door, frustrated that there was none left as much as he was frustrated that he was in the midst of one of the dumbest arguments of his life with Josh. The hunger pains gnawed their way through his veins at the thought of blood. He rubbed his eyes with a hand, grimacing as he tried to push it back under the surface.

Aidan heard Sally's laugh behind him. When he turned around she was standing inches away "Geez, you're so uptight lately," she said. "We're just messing with you."

"I'm not." Josh raised his hand from the living room, his eyes focused on the cat, as if it might destroy the furniture and set the house on fire while he wasn't looking.

Sally rolled her eyes at him before continuing. "I don't care that you let a cat in. I think it's cute you want to save wildlife." She ignored Aidan's rolled eyes and continued over his brief start of a protest. "Just get it out before it starts stinking up the house. I don't want it to smell like crazy cat lady in here."

Aidan stared at her. "You can't smell," he said.

"But I can sense it!" she shot back defensively. "Hey, at least I'm worried about property value. The only reason Josh is so angry is because he wants to chase it up a tree."

Aidan looked away, trying to hide the smile creeping up on his face. Josh narrowed his eyes at both of them. "Oh, a dog joke, that's really funny, Sally. What if I threw around some ghost jokes at you when your death day or whatever came up? Not so funny then," he said, then turned and ascended the stairs, out of sight.

Aidan and Sally took a moment to chuckle together at the expense of their friend when they couldn't hear his footsteps anymore. Aidan looked at where Josh had disappeared and then back to the spirit of the girl at his side. "You really shouldn't have done that," he told her, "It was a low blow."

Sally smiled, flitting off to the staircase in an ethereal motion. She turned back to Aidan at the base of the stairs. "He didn't deny it," she sing-songed in a hushed voice before skipping up the stairs, calling out apologies as she went.

Aidan watched her go with a small smile, wishing once again that he had known Sally when she was still human. He gave the fridge one last look-over for lost blood bags before giving up, and walked back into the living room.

The cat had moved from the top of the chair to the top of the sofa. It was stretched out, its head on its paws and eyes closed, looking a hundred percent more comfortable than it did in the kitchen. Now that its belly was full and was sure nothing was intent on eating it, it had dozed off peacefully. Aidan carefully sat down at the other end of the sofa and took a look at the clock. The whole fiasco with the cat had cost him all but five minutes of his downtime. He sighed.

It didn't even look like the same cat that was camping out in his barn all those years ago; Aidan didn't understand why he kept seeing auburn curls whenever he looked at its grimy fur, or that stolen ball of yarn when it twitched its ear in its sleep. He didn't quite understand why he felt like he had to help it in the first place. There was something about its desperation and simultaneous unwillingness to be helped that struck him even more than its unnerving, wide cat eyes. It had to make an impossible decision in order to survive, and, by the satisfied look on its face, it ended pretty well.

He could still feel the hunger prickling underneath his skin, and Suren on the back of his mind. He thought about Isaac and his cat, and the frequent trips to the barn after that winter, carrying twice the amount of milk and yarn in hopes of winning his pet back. There was a lot to be said about desperation.

Aidan slowly reached a hand up to stroke the creature behind its black ear. It wasn't soft, kind of crusty, actually, and not very pleasant to touch at all, but its eyes didn't even open under his touch.

The cat should go out. But maybe not right now.


End file.
